Republicans who spent eight years critical of then President Barack Obama’s so-called appeasement policy strained on Tuesday to find the diamond in the rough in President’s Trump’s initial agreement with dictator Kim Jong Un to ease tensions with North Korea.
In a series of statements issued in the wee hours of the morning after the Singapore talks, Republicans in Congress were hopeful that Trump’s gambit would succeed but skeptical Pyongyang would accede to U.S. demands for “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization.” They worry Trump made too many concessions up front and placed too much trust in Kim to deliver.
“I’m glad the president is seeking peace through diplomacy. Kim Jong Un has gained much from step one, including an apparent promise from the president regarding important U.S.-South Korea defensive military drills,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said.
“Today’s summit must be followed by multiple meetings to test North Korea’s promises of denuclearization, which they have made in the past and then repeatedly violated,” added Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., a member the Foreign Relations Committee and author of North Korea sanctions legislation.
Trump emerged from his historic summit with Kim promoting a communiqué each signed that called for complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for security guarantees for Pyongyang, beginning with the cancellation of planned military exercises with South Korea. Left out of the document were the words “verifiable” and “irreversible,” a victory for North Korea.
The president said in an hour-long news conference before leaving Singapore that he believes these are the first steps toward Kim relinquishing a nuclear weapons program that could threaten the continental U.S. But he conceded his faith is built on his trust in a 34-year-old strongman he just met and a belligerent regime that has broken nearly every agreement it has signed over the past three decades.
That is what has many Republicans uneasy — especially the traditional national security hawks. The optics alone, with North Korea and its flag treated as a co-equal of the United States, the leader of the free world, was a major propaganda coup for Kim, and probably as hard for some conservatives to stomach as any concern about the potential framework of a future accord.
For eight years Republicans questioned Obama’s attempt to cultivate U.S. adversaries. They accused the Democrat of appeasing Iran with a deal to diminish but not end its nuclear weapons program in exchange for cash and normalization (Trump has since pulled the U.S. out of the deal). Republicans didn’t wait for the agreement; they undermined negotiations during the process, beginning with Obama’s decision to seek a détente with the ayatollahs.
“I’m uncomfortable with suspending military exercises & if this becomes permanent for nothing you are 100% correct,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted in response to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who argued Trump was outfoxed by Kim. “However, after Trump bent over backwards to be conciliatory, if #KJU does nothing, [international] sanctions will be easier to enforce and increase.”
Trump described the framework he signed with Kim as “comprehensive.” The details are to be negotiated in the months ahead, led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. But Republicans, however subtly, rejected the president’s appraisal of the document, fretting that it left too much wiggle room for cheating and obfuscation for a government that has a history of such behavior.
How denuclearization will ultimately be defined is unknown, nor is it clear how it would be enforced, meaning North Korea could ultimately maintain some form of capability. Pyongyang interprets “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” to mean the U.S. security guarantee for South Korea would no longer include a nuclear umbrella.
Trump crowed that Kim agreed to dismantle a major component of his nuclear weapons program, on top of what he committed to in the communiqué. But the president was vague on the process for verification, suggesting it might not exist, reducing Washington’s leverage as the talks move forward.
Additionally, Trump acknowledged that he looks forward to a future where the U.S. can withdraw its 32,000 troops from the South Korea-North Korea border. The president said the concept was not an offer on the table. Still, mentioning the aspiration is another tip of the cap to Pyongyang, which places major emphasis on words and intentions.
For it’s part, North Korea promised to recover and repatriate remains of U.S. soldiers that perished in the Korean War that ended in 1953.
“There was nothing new that came out of the summit in terms of written promises, but the big change of course is that both leaders have personally committed themselves on paper to the process,” said Michael R. Auslin, an Asia expert at the conservative Hoover Institution. “I was surprised how comfortable both leaders looked with each other, as though they both seemed to come into the talks confident of their own positions.”
Trump has indicated his desire to submit any final deal with Kim to the Senate for ratification as a treaty. Requiring 67 votes, that could give nervous Republicans, and Democrats, an opportunity to shape the outcome. By contrast, Obama’s agreement with Iran was an executive accord.
Some Republicans are expressing confidence in Trump to stick to stated U.S. policy that any deal with North Korea must include complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization, or walk away if he can’t. Still others claim to be just fine with the president’s decision to elevate Kim and legitimize his murderous regime, given that continued saber rattling could lead to a nuclear confrontation.
“There is a school of thought that the United States should not sit down — that the United States president should not sit down with two-bit dictators,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark, one of the leading voices against the Iran deal, told conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt. “I think there’s some validity to that school of thought with the exception once those dictators have nuclear weapons.”
Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., was more unvarnished in his approval. He told CNBC’s John Harwood that the Singapore summit was a good start.
“Why not try something different? In the words of John Lennon, ‘give peace a chance,’” Byrne said. “We gave up nothing unless you think suspension of joint exercises with South Korea is something. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I don’t.”
